Holy S***!!! OMG!!! (More surprises in KH2 unfolds)
This time I’m putting the warning up as there are some bits that is pretty…huge. To the point that the entire story of KH1 is corrupted. YES, that serious. I’ll tell ya which bit to skip. For now…
(P.S. What is the HTML code to make the words disappear but become black when you highlight it? Thanks.)
HOLLOW BASTION - Where Cloud and Tifa appears
First off though, after landing in this world, the first thing I do is to of course seek Mr.Cloud out. He’s pretty obvious, as he’s leaning against the wall smugly while Sora approached him to start up a conversation. (and yes, he’s in his FF7AC costume.)
Mr.Cloud is his usual cold-and-aloof self, as what matters to him mostly now is whether Sora can find/have seen Sephiroth about. Cloud described Sephiroth as “The man with long silver hair. Carries a long sword.” And was it before or after this, he said, “We have matters to settled.” @ Sephiroth is his darkness and Cloud wants to vanquish this “darkness” for ever.
Sooo…Sora said he’ll look out for this dude.
And then, Aerith appeared. I thought Cloud would go, “OMG, Aerith, you’re ALIVE!!” but nope…Cloud just gave her a glance and walked off. Just like that o.O;;;; Aerith went after him, and the two have a brief conversation about Cloud and his light and that no matter what and where he is, he’ll find his way back home (and Cloud even promised Aerith that he’ll come back. How sweet.)
And then, after this cutscene, both of ‘em disappeared o.O;;; Oh, but we’ll meet up with them pretty shortly ^-^
It’s off to Merlin’s house this time, and Yuffie and Cid told Sora about the discovery of Ansem’s computer @ the computer with every darn information on the Heartless, the Nobodies, the Worlds, the hearts, and (perhaps) Kingdom Hearts itself. So Sora went to the Bailey…
…only to encounter 3 little familiar-looking fairies. XD
Yuna, Rikku and Paine have been reduced to pixie-size, and while Yuna retained her original form, Rikku had this yellow ribbon on her back as wings and Paine has two cute lil’ devil wings ^-^ All the English voice actors reprised their role here, and like their counterparts in FFX-2, they are always hanging out with each other, and “conspiracing” with each other. (you’ll get what I mean after you reach this cutscene ;P)
After this little meeting, it’s off through the Restoration Site, to the Postern where we met Aerith again, then through this little maze inside this crankily-old-building-festered-with-Heartless and finally reached the darn room called Ansem’s Study.
The place is a complete wreck. Sure, there are some weird diagrams tacked on the circular walls, and there’s even a portrait of this dude, but there are more paper junk on the floor. I don’t see a damn computer as what Cid and Yuffie said =.=
And…while Sora was looking about the place, somebody popped by.
Yeap. Tifa Lockhart. In full FF7AC costume.
Sora was surprised, but before he can ask anything, she said, “Hey, have you see a guy with spiky hair?” Sora thought for a moment, and then he pulled his OWN spiky tuft XD XD XD Hilarious, especially with that “twet” sound everytime he pulls his hair. Tifa laughed and so, “Oh, no. Spikier.” Sora looked at Donald and Goofy, and shook their heads.
At this point, Tifa decided to “take a look around here”.
Only in here, she’s pretty…destructive. Not the kind and demure and calm Tifa like in the movie. Oh NO, in here, when she sees this empty room, she starts hammering the walls, poking through the drawers, kicking stuff here and there, and after much rummaging (to the point the room shook), she finally kicked a part of the wall and a hollow thud resounded. FINALLY satisfied that she can’t find that “guy with spiky hair”, she left.
JUST as she left, Leon materialized. Talk about perfect timing, Squall. XD
Leon placed his hand on some part of the wall, and the wall DISAPPEARED to reveal a steel-encased corridor, which then leads to the REAL Ansem’s room, or his computer room. And while Sora tries oh-so-hard to type (he’s not a techie guy, he admitted) when suddenly Stitch appears and drops down on the keyboard. Leon might have been amused with this ongoings, but Donald is not, and tries to grab Stitch but of course the little bugger ran away in time…
…and then Donald did something destructive to the computer, until the whole party got arrested by the MCP. Leon had shouted at them to “RUN!” but before they can budged an inch…
…they become pixelated and ‘transmitted’ into the TRON world @ Space Paranoids.
SPACE PARANOIDS - SO not fun in here =.=
Bloody MCP thinks he’s SO great, he can arrest Users@humans and locked them in his pit cells. Luckily Mr.Tron is in here to save the party, and after they did a good jailbreak outta the cell, it’s off to the energy core (all this computer terms are a bit overwhelming for Sora, he’s practically dazed the whole way through) where there’s this !@#$ mission where Sora has to hit the pink box to get the reboot-junk-something.
Only, said boxes will rotate quickly and rest temporarily, so you had like, 10 seconds to figure out where is the darn pink box. Only, the pink box will appear only after you hammer any random blue box =.= PLUS, this mission had a 2-minute time limit, so you can see…it’s testing MY limit here.
Luckily I’d just randomly hit 1 box and voila, the pink box appeared and Sora instantly destroyed it. I still have 1 minute left - talk about good timing here.
After the core has been activated, Sora is teleported back to Ansem’s PC room to “find the password to DTD” from NOT Ansem, as insisted by Tron, but somewhere in his study. At Ansem’s Study, Tifa suddenly came back again o.O;;; to rummage around the room AGAIN o.O;;;; and she’d removed Ansem’s portrait, to reveal…
…the blueprint of Kingdom Hearts @ every single thing that has been related to this game and Sora and the Heartless and the worlds - you get the picture. And just up above, the words “TRON / DOOR TO Darkness.”
Putting the pieces together, the password dawned on the party just like that (it’s the names of the seven princesses that is needed to open the DTD in KH1) and here’s where the ever-elusive King Mickey finally appears! (decked in Organization clothes though…pretty suspicious…) And after much jubilation from everyone, Sora wanted to know where’s Riku, but all that Mickey could say is “I’m sorry.” And he didn’t even faced Sora when he said it.
(Which brings my suspicion nearer to conviction that Riku has become a member of the Organization XIII. I dunno if he’s become a Heartless or a Nobody, but he’s with the bad guys now.)
Leon called later, and it’s back again to the Tron world for more…
…mini-games? AAAAARRRRGGGGHHH….save me from this mini-games overkill!! DX DX DX (It’s bad enough I’d faced FFX-2’s many MANY mini-games…I’m starting to get scared and sick of it all~~~)
But luckily this mini-game is familiar. Heck, I woulda say it’s a RIP-OFF from Cloud’s Motorcycle Chase mini-game in FF7. Like in that game, in here you hafta ride a bike (a very cool and funky bike compared to Cloud’s :P) and while riding, you have to hit the enemies that appear on your left and right, and also to turn left and right when the on-screen commands tell ya. It’s been years since I’ve used Cloud to bantai Shinra’s soldiers in FF7, but it’s pretty easy to play, SINCE I did enjoy that Cloud mini-game XD XD XD (Heck, it’s the one mini-game that brought me more gil for me, after I got sick of the submarine-sinking one).
So….hammered a lot of Heartless (including a pink battle tank!!), langgar-ed the walls too after missing the commands, and finally ESCAPED from the damn game grid. ‘Coz if you lose in here, you will be de-rezzed @ de-pixelated @ deleted @ GAME OVER.
Nonetheless, Sora and Tron still have to stop the MCP @ dumb idiot who called himself the Master Control Program, of which I’d remembered in the movie, was inside this arcade game machine, and was promptly destroyed in the end. Tron, a security program (like his role in that movie too) revealed that Ansem the Wise copied the entire dataspace-something-thingy again, but he don’t know why Ansem included the MCP together after that. (This is where Sora suspected it was that during that time, Ansem has been corrupted.)
So…off to the Canyon to go to the Dataspace itself, where there’s another mission (which requires much X-button mashing and Reaction commands), and then it’s to the I/O Tower to confront a BIG Heartless Boss called “Hostile Program” that was released by the MCP to destroy Hollow Bastion.
Destroyed the Boss (where the Freeze Reaction command is a MUST-USE command here if ya want to survive this boss-fight), and after that, Tron teleported the gang out, and even included a really cute but bloody-pixelated message of Sora, Donald, Goofy and a big yellow THANK YOU!! on Ansem’s computer. (And got another Keyblade too~)
Oh, and King Mickey is finally back to continue from where he left off.
And then, here comes the BIG surprise that will CORRUPT the whole of Kingdom Hearts 1, if ya haven’t played it through. I didn’t care the warning posting on the walkthrough, and just initiated the cutscene…
(What is the HTML code to make the words disappear but become black when you highlight it? Thanks.)
NOTE: DO NOT READ THIS BIT IF YA HAVE NOT PLAYED THE WHOLE OF KH1. If you think it does not matter, go on. Don’t cry after that.
The Ansem they fought in KH1 is NOT the real Ansem. They fought the Heartless version of Ansem @ an Impostor of Ansem, as quoted by Sora. Also, since it is a Heartless Ansem, there IS a Nobody of Ansem, which when revealed later on in the game, will become the FINAL BOSS of KH2. And like all other Nobodies, his name has an X in it - he’s none other than Xemnas.
Sora and co. is SO dejected after hearing the explanation by Mickey. After that, there’s a loud explosion, and we see the cutscene of…
…Hollow Bastion being overwhelmed by HEARTLESS! The Heartless have invaded Hollow Bastion!! OMG!!! The huge army of Heartles marched through the ravines, and we see scenes of all the FF characters in Hollow Bastion battling it out:
(I can’t remember the sequence, but I remember the characters)
1) Yuffie was down on HP, and Aerith tossed her a healing item to heal. The two wandered off through the ranks of the Heartless…
2) Tifa beat up a pretty big group of Heartless
2) Stitch also helped in battle, shooting his little gun here and there…
3) Yuna the fairy was almost killed by a Heartless soldier, but Rikku and Paine came in and pushed the Heartless off the cliff. And the whole lot ran away as more Heartless came…
**4) Cloud and Leon are stuck in the middle of a ravine. The front and back of the ravine are blocked by SO MANY Heartless, there seems no way to escape, except to fight. Leon and Cloud were standing back to back and wielding each their prominent weapons. They
had a little conversation, and after reaching an agreement (seen by their smiles on their faces), they went forward with a loud cry and started the massacre of Heartless on their own…
King Mickey set off first, and just as Sora and co. reached the Postern…
…who did we see?
I see…
…long silver hair…
…a single glorious ebony wing…
…a long samurai sword…
…a figure in black, with a pair of smaller wings sprouting from his thigh…
As the figure turned to face the screen, I screamed in the room, “SEPHIROTH!!!!!!~” XD XD XD
Sora then told Sephiroth that Cloud was looking for him. Sephiroth said that he knew about it, saying something along the lines of “He’s looking for his darkness, and I am his darkness” and after a few more words, Sephiroth turned (I LOVED THOSE WINGS!!!! XD XD XD) and walked off, and saying his last words, he floated flew floated and flew away, and disappeared in a globe of black light…
(the voice actor here has a very nice deep voice. I’m lovin’ it XD XD XD)
After his cutscene, is pre-war-Heartless-killing time, until we meet the cowardly-but-cute Organization XIII member Demyx. With this sitar again, and that grin on his face shows that he’s about to enjoy this battle.
BUT, it’s a pretty easy battle (Demyx goes “Dance, water, dance!” all the time), and after having defeated him…there’s this sudden huge chunk of rock that was going to hit and kill Mickey but Goofy stepped in and took the blow instead…
…and sent Goofy sprawling and unconscious to the other side of the wall.
Sora and Donald ran over and tried to wake him up, but he didn’t. Tears abound. (I thought Goofy DID die too, but it can’t be, as knowing this is a video game AND it’s Kingdom Hearts, Goofy the character will not be killed off this easily. The game creators are just trying to pull our legs.) Mickey was SO upset, he discarded his black hoods to reveal his Sora-rip-off clothes, and brandishing his own Keyblade, he SOUGHTS REVENGE!!! Together with Donald, followed by Sora, reluctant to leave Goofy behind but well, the war must go on.
And then there’s another BEAUTIFUL cutscene XD XD XD (from my words, I knew you guys knew who I’m talking about XD)
Cloud is battling a horde of Heartless this time on his own, as he got cornered in one part of the ravine that has 3 walls and only one way to escape, that has been blocked by the Heartless. He is surrounded by this Heartless, and as he moved forward for the kill…
…all the Heartless disappeared. Cloud turned…
…to find his nemesis, in full glorious form, waiting for him at the mouth of the cliff.
“Sephiroth!” Cloud shouted.
And here began the exchange about Cloud being the light that will be consumed by his dark past, and that Sephiroth is his darkness, and that Cloud should give in. Cloud had his Buster Sword-wrapped-in-bandages out, and Sephiroth easily touched it with his Masamune (as it is, Sephiroth IS standing a little distance away from Cloud). Sephiroth tried to corrupt Cloud again, and Cloud shouted to Sephiroth, “Shut up!” and Sephiroth continued his verbal barrage about the darkness stuff again…until he disappeared in that black globe of light again, and Cloud (frustrated? Enraged? His face is sad and angry at the same time) left the place in a hurry to help the others…
And here’s the part where Sora have to battle the horde of Heartless ALONE, since Donald and Mickey ran off earlier than him, but fortunately, the FF characters chipped in to help him ^-^ First was Yuffie, then it was Tifa (she always go “MY FINAL HEAVEN!” and deals this few orbs of light that kills the Heartless in one go), after that it was Leon (with his Lionheart again), and last but not least, Cloud - the one cool thing about the last fight is that as Sora (or was it Cloud) deal the last blow, the ending matrix-slow-mo-afterscene (typical after every battle in KH2 comes to an end), it shows CLOSE-UP that of Cloud, decked in that black clothes of his, and his Buster Sword comes a-swinging…XD Pretty cool aftershot, actually.
And after that, Sora FINALLY met up with Donald and Mickey (and Goofy showed up unscathed), and then it’s forward for the REAL WAR @ direct confrontation with the HUGE army of Heartless…
…only there’s this little cutscene of Mickey recognizing a familiar-looking Organization XIII member up on the cliff, and he realized who it was.
And here comes again the BIG surprise that will CORRUPT whatever understanding you have of Ansem and his Heartless/Nobodies.
NOTE: DO NOT READ THIS BIT IF YA HAVE NOT PLAYED THE WHOLE OF KH1. If you think it does not matter, go on. Don’t cry after that.
The figure was Xehanort, an apprentice of Ansem. And the fake Ansem Sora fought, was NEVER Ansem in the first place, it was the Heartless of Xehanort who calls himself Ansem (due to Xehanort’s obsession to do everything dedicated to Ansem). Xehanort’s Heartless IS the Ansem that Sora fought in KH1, and standing on this cliff itself, THOUGH he looked like the KH1-Ansem, it is Xehanort’s Nobody, who calls himself Xemnas. This is because Mickey has MET the REAL Ansem, and the real Ansem is still living, somewhere but hidden. And the real Ansem@ Ansem the Wise do not looked even remotely similar to the fake Ansem/Xehanort/Xemnas.
Yesh…I know. Square Enix is famous for its complicated storyline AND complicated backgrounds of most of its characters, but it’s the mystery and (human’s) curiousity to find out, right?
AND Finally, after that cutscene, it’s WAR-time @ The 1000-Heartless-Kill.
Yeap, Sora has to kill 1000 Heartless soldiers on his own (as Donald and Goofy had to take care of the other armies of Heartless) and Sora rushes forwards towards the huge approaching army of Heartless ala Aragorn-style…
…and here’s where the killing-spree Lammy-style happens. I’ll save ya the bits, as it’s pure X-button-smashing and Reaction commands (Rising Sun RULZ here, as well as Snag/Sparkle Ray) and other than that…I’m having fun slaughtering all the Heartless ^________^ Muahahahahaha~~~
After the battle, there’s the cutscene of Sora meeting Saix, Maleficient pops by and ran away, Sora gets overwhelmed (for the first time) by a bunch of Heartless after hearing Saix said that his Keyblade helps to release the captured hearts inside the Heartless, and its this hearts that the Organization is coming after…
…so, in a gist, the Organization is using Sora as their puppet to extract more hearts for their use.
Sora is in a dilemma, of course, and he’s become lost and confused, until Maleficient saved the party and while Sora gets lost in the dark world, Donald found a box with a Sea-Salt Ice cream and a picture of Pence, Hayner, Olette and…Roxas. Sora admitted the name just surfaced (Roxas is surfacing Roxas is surfacing) but he did not know who Roxas was (duh…he’s your vessel you dungu…)
(While Sora gets lost in this dark world, there’s a final cutscene of Leon shouting after Sora and co. after he sees this bright light emerged from the canyon where Sora was last seen standing. Cloud told him that he needn’t worry, as Sora is the Key-bearer, and he’s one lucky kid (yes, this is him saying it). Leon hoped Cloud was right and hoped to see Sora soon.)
And after all this big mess (yes, the war ended, just like this. Hollow Bastion IS in ruins, but Leon will figure out something), Sora and co. got teleported to…
THE LAND OF DRAGONS - China’s Dragon got corrupted
I shall now keep the rest short and simple as it has been an awfully long post, and the rest is mere boss-fights and nothing else, so here goes.
Up on the Ridge, this Organization member Mulan was chasing turned out to be someone Sora was familiar. The black dude was silent, wields this dragon-fin-black-blade that looks SO familiar, and Sora can’t defeat him just yet as this Organization member ran away…to the palace. Later on that.
Just then, a corrupted-dragon-turned-Heartless emerged from the mountains, and flew to the Imperial City. Sora and co. and Mulan hurried there to find ANOTHER Organization member who is NOT Riku but Xigbar who ran away in the end (are ALL the Organization XIII members chickens or what?!?! They keep running away at the sight of Sora!?! DX Useless wimps). The Emperor is safe (though Li Shang was beaten up badly) and then it’s to defeat this dragon (which do NOT look like one, besides the head) which is time-consuming and sometimes frustrating as this Heartless boss has some big attacks on his own (like that big laser beam and cymbals-releasing-bombs attack).
Done the Storm Rider in all the same after a gruesome 10-minute battle, it’s back to Hollow Bastion to wrap some things up:
1) The Gullwings Confrontation - sure, Donald had lied to them about Leon having treasure, but the Gullwings are mad at Sora for lying, and threatened to rob either his treasure or all his items. In a fix, Sora couldn’t do much, but in the end the Gullwings pitited him (“After hearing what Leon has said, you had a rough time all this while”), they presented to him instead a Gullwing Keyblade. YAY~
2) The 100 Acre Wood final page. It’s SO frustrating to find that missing bear in the Spooky Cave. Took me 3 tries before I finally find that bear AND Pooh finally remembers Sora. Happy Ending? I HOPE so…the mini-games in here are enough to kill my love for KH.
The last, final world before I called it a day…
BEAST’S CASTLE - A Stormy Confrontation
Stormy because after all the hard work Belle and the Beast had put into preparing their party/dance, Xaldin has to come and gatecrash the party =.= The Organization member kidnapped the Beast’s rose and Belle, and in due part to Bell’s quick wits, she managed to hit Xaldin in the ribs (and he doubled over in pain…I thought Nobodies have no hearts, so they can’t feel anything, right?), grabbed the rose and ran into the castle.
And here on, is the toughest boss battle I’ve ever faced in KH2. Oogie Boogie seems a piece of cake compared to this, man…
Using the new Keyblade given by the Beast (and the best one so far for me after Hero’s Crest and Oathkeeper), defeating Xaldin is no child’s play. He has this 6 (or 8?) lances flying in the air with him, and he has a devastating attack that throws Sora a distance away @ you can’t get 1 feet near him at all. Also, halfway through the battle, Xaldin summons this white wind dragon to carry him, and after crossing under the bridge, the dragon’ll blast white laser along the bridge, barring Sora from ANY form of escape. This move itself reduced Sora’s HP to ½. YESH, he’s THAT strong.
It requires much evading, Learn/Jump Reaction Commands, Beast’s Twin Howl, Donald’s Comet and Sora’s whatever-skills-he-has to win this battle. Xaldin is also a slippery ol’ man, it’s hard to corner him and beat him up old-school-style.
BUT, after much endless barrage of attacks from moi (Lammy: That’s it. This ends, NOW.”), Xaldin is finally defeated@ dead and gone with the wind; Organization members who died in Sora’s hand will NOT come back anymore XD. And there’s finally joy in the Beast’s Castle, as the Beast and Belle danced their victory waltz…
After documentating all this (GOD, NOW I sound like Xehanort - but hey~~~ Xehanort looks pretty cute in that lab coat. I’m SERIOUS. He looks SO gentlemanly, I can hardly believe he can become a Heartless/Nobody. It’s TRUE. I like his hair best XD XD XD), it’s time for me to take a break, before I hunt me another pint of pirates at Port Royal. ARRR!
-Lammy-